


The Casket of Pilot 05

by mmmdraco



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:51:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Milliard, we're losing the war and they're blaming it all on me. I'm going to die soon, aren't I?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Casket of Pilot 05

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the characters, I mean no harm, I have no money... Stuff like that. Yeah.

He paced the room while his friend drank at the bar; drank, drank until his belly bulged with the ache of consumption and his smile echoed of the first draughts of fine wine. "Treize, haven't you had enough to drink? I've something to show you."

Treize, a man with a rumpled uniform which wasn't his usual, stumbled from his bar stool. "Milliard, we're losing the war and they're blaming it all on me. I'm going to die soon, aren't I?" 

His blush was evident as he leaned, bloated, against the wall. Milliard walked toward him and took his arm. "We can't tell for sure just yet. Just... relax. Earlier today, we got something for you that we knew you'd like."

Treize leaned heavily against his friend, his hair slightly disheveled, and one eyebrow mussed as though he'd been stroking it in the opposite direction than that which it grew in. "Did you get me Pilot 05?"

There was a smile on Milliard's face. "We did! He's in a casket down in the holds. Wouldn't you like to see?"

The shocked expression that Treize wore was numb and not-so-very recognizable. "My beautiful child is dead? I must see him and assure him of my love. Take me, Milliard. Let me see him."

"Oh, but he is all the way down in the holds. Are you sure he's worth that?"

Treize pulled away from Milliard's arm and spat brazenly, the effect dampened by the sprawling fall he made. "He's worth it. Now, help me up, you fumbling bool, and let me see him. I must kiss him."

Through the hallways of the battle ship Libra, they went on and on, down through the levels of the ship until they'd reached the hallway of the holds. Milliard took a moment to stop Treize. "My dear man, you are drunk and you've lost so much sleep this week. I fear you might be getting sick. Are you certain you want to see the boy?"

"I am certain," proclaimed Treize with bravado that seemed little more than lackluster in his current condition.

Milliard could not conceal the hint of shadowed smirk that danced along his lips, but Treize had not noticed. "Oh, certainly."

Treize took a moment to look at Milliard. "Why are you wearing your mask again?"

A smile was shown. "I've worn masks for so much of my life that it gives me comfort."

"Ah. Yes."

The door to the holds opened and the pair entered the bowels of the ship, two abreast, one stumbling with each step, the other only stumbling when the first man bumped into him with unusual force.

The corridors were full of rooms that descended in long rows, twisting around and around the bottom levels of the ship. They had passed a seemingly infinite number of holds thus far and Treize's breathing was labored. "Milliard... come we any nearer?"

Glancing around, his eyes pausing momentarily on inconsequential things, Milliard stepped ahead suddenly. "Only a bit further, my good man. Come. Let us find the boy; his casket."

Treize sobbed with half-taken breath; emotion welling from a wound finally spread enough to see. "He can't be dead, Milliard. I haven't loved him yet. I must love him before he dies."

Milliard glared at Treize, who didn't notice the seething gaze that burned his flesh with danger. "You love *me*. You have loved me for years now. You have no need for a little boy who is your sworn enemy, even if he is as imcompetant as you are at this very moment. Stop your foolishness, Treize. We are nearly there."

Dragging along his feet, Treize trudged with drunken fervor. His cheeks were now flushed with an oxygen-deprived pale rather than his former wine-bright blush. "Milliard, I am sorry. But, you are no mystery to me. I've only now to dream of his firm flesh and I lose myself in fantasy. Is that so wrong?"

"Have you ever been called a pedophile, Treize?"

Haughtily paused in the corridor in an attempt to catch his breath, Treize replied, "Only by children... child."

Milliard colored and pushed Treize onward, without words, to the end of the corridor. The door to the final room was partially opened and Milliard gestured for Treize to go inside. "Here we are, old man. Your child bride awaits inside in the casket. If you need to love him, his body is still warm."

His breath coming now in short wheezing gasps, Treize slunk into the room and felt his eyes water at seeing the closed casket. Milliard was behind him, closing the door, so the little bit of light from the hallway was fading fast, the casket waning from view. "Better turn on the light, Treize. The switch is on the wall right next to you."

Treize reached out one unsteady hand and ran it along the wall. His fingers found the switch just as the last bit of light was eliminated from the room. Pausing before flipping the switch, Treize listened to the sounds of the room. There was nothing within the room but his own raspy breathing, but just outside the door there was a clicking and something that sounded vaguely like a gas leak. He took a shallow breath, even moreso than every other breath he seemed to have taken since entering the hall of holds. He held fast to the light switch and gave it a flick. The light gave it's own flicker, then died out.

Taking pause, Treize tried the light again. The filament clicked, but there was no more light. He felt along the wall quickly, fear beginning to override alcohol. "Milliard?" He waited in the pensive silence, but received no answer. "Milliard!" He shouted, but, again, received no answer.

He next shouted until his lungs and throat and lips ached with strain and misuse, his tongue parched from the dry air. "Milliard," he breathed against the unusually warm door. "Milliard?" He never found his answer.

Eventually, Treize remembered the casket and set toward it in the dark. He fell upon it in six easy steps. It took him only a moment to open it and climb right in on top of the other occupying figure. But, with his full uniform, gloves and all, Treize didn't feel the body until his lips touched the decaying flesh that gave way with a ripping tear at his light touch. Treize retched and vomited in reply, moving to stand, but the cover of the casket slammed shut and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find escape from this casket now filled with himself, his vomitus, and a cold body of advanced decay. "Milliard, why..." Treize trailed off as he gasped for breath again.

He lost his life to an ignoble cause for such a noble man. No one discovered the body. The door had been welded shot and marked that the room contained an irrepairable hole through which much of the oxygen of the holds was being sucked out. Such was the truth, but no one had bothered to tell the once-alive Treize Khushrenada, especially not his friend, lover, and fellow fighter for peace, Milliard Peacecraft.

No one saw Treize Khushrenada for three days on the ship, though several individuals on an L-3 colony, which the ship had docked with, claimed to have seen Milliard Peacecraft disposing of an oxygen tank with a long attached tube. He was also seen talking with a cloaked man in soft voice, a man he told needed to get a haircut and that he, Milliard, would supervise. He then kissed the man.

The day after that, the barber shop which they'd attended was burned with all of the workers inside in a freak accident that no one could even begin to describe. The cloaked man could not be found and no one would dare accuse Milliard Peacecraft of true crime.

The war which they'd been fighting ended the next day with only a few fires left to put out after a good-sized battle. A man who looked and sounded and acted like Treize Khushrenada brought a mobile suit into battle against Pilot 05, clearly underestimating him. From the first strike to the end of the battle didn't constitute enough time to flip a page in a history textbook. The man's last words were to Milliard, about seeing him on the other side. He looked as though he'd never thought that death could come at such a time.

Pilot 05 cried over a loss he'd never realized would be as such.

Milliard lit two candles of memory in a shortened version of a ceremony that required only one candle.

Treize Khushrenada, according to the history textbooks, died a martyr who ended a war, and never had his own casket. At least they were correct in part of it all.


End file.
